Donald Trump's Truth Social website has been hit by a major outage leaving users unable to access individual profiles.
Those trying to access profiles on the site, such as Trump's personal @realDonaldTrump handle, were greeted with an error message stating: "Something went wrong. We're sorry for the interruption. If the problem persists, please reach out to our support team. You may also try to clear cookies and browser data (this will log you out)."
The Context
Truth Social, which was launched in February 2022, has become one of Trump's favored ways of communicating with the public and his supporters. In this respect, it fulfils a role similar to that played by Twitter, now X, until Trump was banned from the platform in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress by hundreds of his supporters.
In November 2022, Trump's X account was reinstated after the company was purchased by business tycoon Elon Musk, but the former president has only posted once and has otherwise stuck to his own website. Following a series of primary victories last week, Trump is now the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
What We Know
Reports from users unable to access Truth Social began at about 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday and are continuing as of 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to Downdetector, a website that monitors online outages.
Downdetector received the highest number of outage reports at 4:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday, when 71 recordings were made, though this had fallen to 12 by 2:55 a.m. ET this morning.
Newsweek contacted Truth Social by email at 4:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday. This article will be updated if they decide to comment.
Truth Social also went down briefly on March 8, coinciding with President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in Congress, according to The Mirror.
Views
The Truth Social outages sparked mockery on rival social media website X.
Sarah Larchmont, an X user with 21,600 followers, shared a screenshot of the Truth Social error message, jokingly adding: "Truth Social has been down for hours now. I wonder if Letitia James seized it."
Trump has been ordered to pay $355 million plus interest after a court concluded he engaged in civil fraud in a case brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James. Trump has thus far failed to produce the money and if this continues, James could attempt to seize some of his assets.
Referring to Trump's habit of posting in capital letters, another X user said: "Truth Social is still down [laughing emoji] There will be tons of rage tweeting with all CAPS once it gets back up."
A third user suggested, without providing any evidence, that the Truth Social outage could be the result of an attack by hackers.
They wrote: "It is entirely possible that Truth Social has been taken down by hackers.
"Is anyone with a Truth Social account able to log in right now? If not, someone took the whole site down."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
James Bickerton is a Newsweek U.S. News reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is covering U.S. politics and world ... Read more
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